Thanks for the encouraging words - I need them right now! Completely burnt out and exhausted - at the bottom of one of those lows between the highs that come from working out really hard for extended periods, know what I mean?

4/26

To shake things up, I decided to do a M&F routine since they're usually nothing like any routine I would ever put together. Makes for a good shock to the system. This one is intended for bikini or at least it's called bikini blast or something silly like that...The idea is to have a low, medium, and high rep day combined with HIIT, with steady cardio on the intervening days. I believe the weights are intended to be fairly low, and things like the Pushup to DB row are shown as knee push ups...but to make it more intense I kept the weight moderate, did real push ups, etc. Holy crap, it was hard! Followed by 20 minutes of 30 sec all out sprints/90 sec walking on the treadmill.

Each exercise is superset with the one above , except the push up to DB row, which is of course one exercise, and the shoulder part - that's a brutal triset of Upright Row, Military Press, and DB Lateral Raises. The standing calf raises are one-legged, 10 on each leg...the gym unfortunately has no standing calf machine.

Some things I need to work on are hamstring curls and bench dips: my muscles are apparently so tight in those areas that I almost always get cramps when I do those exercises. Weird. I must foam roll!

High Rep Routine: Performed as a circuit with a minute of rest between circuits:

The fact that it was 80 degrees and humid out made it harder (our home gym is in a shed outside and it takes a while to for AC to cool it down). This is definitely the easiest of this three-day split; it's supposed to be a recovery day.

This routine was a lot harder than I expected. The leg extension/jump lunge/push press triset is particularly brutal...

5/1

Sprint intervals...Began with some hill sprints, but Derek pulled his inner thigh so I went back to running my usual circuit around the lake. It's somewhat hilly, but not too steep. Did 30 sec sprints/90 sec walks. Last two were more like fast runs than sprints...hill sprints destroy my adductors.

This whole routine is surprisingly hard! All the leg stuff on top of the sprints is indeed brutal but it's definitely what I need; if this combined with 1 - 1.5 hours of dance practice every day doesn't tighten up my legs then I'll have to seriously consider having them replaced.

Just got back from 4 days in Mexico (memorial service for family) so playing catch up.

The workouts I did just before we left are but a distant (painful) memory at this point:

5/2Low Rep/Heavy Day (all superset 'cept for pushup to db row which is one exercise and shoulders which was a triple set)

Upped the weight on this routine for most everything...looking at this I'm thinking I accidentally did DB curls, because 15 lbs on barbell would be pretty insanely light for 10 reps!

Also did 20 minutes of some sort of HIIT - probably at the park - but no longer recall...

5/4

High Rep/Low Weight Day (3 circuits):

Whenever I look at this workout I'm embarrassed by the low weights but it does kick my ass. I'm usually drenched in sweat by the end.

5/5 - 5/7

Workouts in the Mexican Desert:

Included things like sprint intervals up a sandy desert road (youch), pullups on old rusty docks, band resistance stuff on palm trees, pushups, stepups, yoga...that sort of thing. We did work out every day since there's not a whole lot to do as a vegan at a fishing resort...but didn't keep an accurate record. Back to the grind tomorrow.

Gah - so far behind! I'm getting an inkling now of how Robert must feel keeping up with everything!

Middle Eastern dance, aka belly dance (just don't like the unfortunate negative connotations), plus some modern dance. I actually have taken to doing online classes for this because the local classes are kind of silly and dumbed down. There's some new local classes starting up in June I've signed up for; hopefully they don't suck.

The online classes, though, are surprisingly very rigorous - took me a few months to be able to get through even the 45 minute warm ups because my legs were burning so intensely. The awesome thing about this style of dance is the muscle isolations...you learn to isolate the various muscles in your abs, back, glutes, etc and repeatedly drilling those movements is a whole different kind of grueling workout.

That's cool, I will check out that link! I used to do belly dance before I moved, there was an awesome local dancing group that had lessons in different styles. I never took it too seriously, but it was a lot of fun.

Ok: what a horrible workout week! Between stress and travel and a week of a messed up sleep schedule I could barely function in the gym. I kept up with my high/med/low and HIIT split and kept the weights about the same on everything but hated every minute of it. I was also unable to run more than a mile at a time, gah!

Finally after we got up yesterday at 4:30 to drive up to maryland for the Poplar Springs Run for the Animals, we got home and I realized I was seeing spots and couldn't read my book at all. I mentioned to Derek that his mustache appeared to be melting into the siding of our house while he was talking to me and he suggested that I take a nap...I did for an hour and we went to bed early and I feel much better today!

Instead of bothering to post my miserable workouts of the prior week which were virtual copies of the ones above, I'm going to start fresh and am designing a new routine starting now.

4/16/2011

Cardio: Two mile run around the lake (moderately hilly) in 17.3 minutes. Not fabulous but good for me!

Tonight I'll do 1 hour of dance practice. No additional cardio as I had been doing; it's time to admit to myself that I need actual time to recover for legs days. My lower back is like a clenched fist with all the sprints, leg exercises, and plyometrics every day.

I know is seems really easy. Slow controlled form, deep squats, keeping muscles flexed made it more difficult than it appears. Still, not as hard as a lot of the stuff I had been doing but my joints need the break!

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